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It's only Junk

Am I Safe?

Hell, I don't know what the part is for, I just found it in the bottom of my door. Never the less, it never met anything that looked like bolts though those holes and it's a good example of the workmanship the US taxpayers are suppose to cover under the new warranty program now that they own part of the publicly traded company.
      Now that the US Tax payers own part of the company, the company is immune for law suits claims if the door don't hold up and you loose your loved one because of it. (Or should I say that if you door falls apart upon impact because they used a couple inferior spot welds instead of a couple bolts, yah can't sue the cheep bastards.) And yeah, how long would it take to put a half a dozan more spot welds on it? A half a minute? How much would that cost? Too much? Oh yeah, they would be loosing money.
      Never the less, they must have saved a few dollars for their share holders.
      One good thing, my door dosen’t rattle any more.

I'm shocked

For those of you who happen to think having a publicly traded company supply you with your work trucks.
      That old make one bolt fit everything attitude must add up to cost saving and in turn adds up to profit. They must have saved a lot of money on them. But their bolts raise hell with the after market shocks as well as the original. Most people would think a smooth shank bolt my be a little better, but what do "they" care?

11 worst cars -Consumer Reports.
@ Money.CNN News

May 4, 2009: Look at it this way. The US auto manufactures already owed their part manufactures $13.5 Billion.
The Obama and crew stepped in and gave the parts manufactures $5 billion to keep the parts flowing.
(But I would guess, only a few the big ones like Johnson Controls actually got the money.) 
But then Obama got Chrysler to pull a Donald Trump and file bankruptcy.
Wouldn't that mean Chrysler can dump their debits to the parts suppliers and start over?

But the auto manufactures say that they would be worried the people wouldn't want to buy a vehicle from a bankrupt company.
So Mr Obama and crew say, yeah we the tax payers will be responsible for warranty on the cars sold though such bankrupt companies.

Well then just guess what will be going on at the parts suppliers.
"Hey Mack, we got less than 50 cent on the dollar for the parts we sold them last year. To hell with deburing those manifolds.
And Fred, I know those part are suppose to be spec out at 5,000ths of an inch, but we know they will still turn at 10-12,000ths, so don't wast any time re machining them to any tighter than 10,000ths."
"But Boss, they won't last long at those tolerances, and burs might end up scratching the cylinders."
Hell, what do we care, the government will be covering the warranty repairs we won't.
Just get them out the door.
They'll just give more job to the mechanics at the dealers."
Oh yeah boss, the junk will just be part of Obama's stimulus package, so why should we give a damn."

Feb. 12, 08: I got a kick out of the New Ford truck featured on the Pickuptruck.com web-site. Ford came out with what they call a Fat Boy, which is a F-350 equipped with a wider front axial. Claiming the new truck  is rated a 13,000 lb. because of it. Another thing they claim is that it will turn in a 50 ft. radius  instead of 57 for the regular F-350. However after looking at the third picture, I can see how they managed to get it to turn sharper: They put a bend in the tie rod end. I had to laugh and I even mentioned it in their forum, " How ugly can it get?"
         I said, I wonder how many trips around the farm it could go before needing a new front end alignment. Then I even pasted their own picture of it. Even the brake line was put in a lousy place. My god what a bunch of idiots they have designing their trucks.
       I had to laugh at the pathetic  engineering.
            If you would like to take a look at this crafty engineering yourself, go to -
Pickuptruck.com/Fat Boy  (third photo.)

Feb. 1st, 2007: It's funny how every time I take something that Chrysler had put on my truck off, the truck gets better. Like the slow drain on the battery. Of course there is a clock in the radio, but after disconnecting it there still was a drain. The drain that wore out my 3 year battery in 14 months. So I started pulling wires and fusses and the funny part of it all was that the draw was coming from a 20 amp fuss inside the heavy duty fuss panel under the hood. The fuss is labeled for the " fuel pump." Funny thing is that there isn't an electric fuel pump on the truck. Could the power source be for the fuel sending gauge unit that is inside the fuel tank. Yeah - the sending unit that went out at 40,000 miles and cost $300.00?
        I opted for just watching the miles and filling up at every 400 miles because a friend of mine paid the $300.00 for a new sending unit and found that the replacement went bad in less than a year later.
       And when you think of it, having something shorting out in your fuel tank isn't a very good idea.

I'll have to invite you back, because I have more material than you can imagine for this page. I just have to round it all up and post it.

But to give you a taste: I bought a 94 chevy van, boy that was a lemon and I made them buy it back. the list is long, but the story I wrote about it is even better than the list.

The dodge thing: boy what a piece of work it is. First is the brakes, of which they've know would always pull to the side and I've even had them repace the calipers twice. (Just grease the pins. it will last about a month, which is about long as the new calipers will.)

The scarry part is the wiring harness. They wired all the park lights with 18-20 guage wire. It melted the light switch and they fix it with a relay and an inline one time use fuse. But if the wiring gets to hot, there goes the whole harness, airbag and all. Therefore, I pulled the fuse on the airbag. Don't need that going off while I'm driving.

Funny thing, lately  I just  saw a Dodge truck take out a concrete wall and the airbags didn't go off.

Then there is the throttle cable that they didn't put an anti-chaffing sleve on. I had to buy that but the linkage I've rubberbanded for years was recalled but the dealer wanted me to pay $120.00 to put the part on. (Yeah, rubber bands are free.....)

Then there is this hood latch that they changed but it still didn't work, my hood still flew up anyway.

Then there is the $300.00 track bar that last about a year because it's designed to ware itself out.

Feb.13th, '07: Funny how you can look at a parking lot and see very many trucks from the 1995 area anymore. It's ten years later and most of them have been scraped. When I was a kid, it was common to see truck that were 15 to 20 years old. Certainly they have a shorter 5 year life span because they has sold you more do dads to go wrong. Many people today seem to think they are building autos better because they come with things like electric seat warmers.   Not thinking that it will take it's toll on the alternator because of the juice it takes.

Now that we made such a bureaucracy out of the requirements to be able to manufacture anything in this county. Corporations have found that China has lax standards, and the alternator manufactures have learned to rely on the inexpensive resource. But the Chinese are not dummies and they knew as soon as we were dependent of them making our parts they jacked up the price. Bang, they've got the alternator business hook line and sinker,

Now the days of the $35.00 rebuilt 65 amp alternator is starring at us in the face with $150.00 price tag on it.

June 3rd, 08: Today I discovered I had another short in my truck. The only thing I can think is that the computer is draining the juice out of the battery. I'm pulling every fuse and relay I can do without. But the fact that I lost my gauges only points to one thing. My trans is now powered by the assessory switch. 
   I've got to get off this computer and search through the wiring dieagram for the way of getting my gauges working directly of the battery. 

March   2008:   Get this: Ford's own internal research shows its approval rating at just 44%, GM's Chevrolet brand at 49% and Toyota is at 74%
            Funny how these auto manufactures claim that they are loosing money. While Ford's stock price is running at about half as it was a year ago, they just awarded CEO Mulally and other executives a total of 2 million stock units valued at nearly $15 million along with 6 million in stock options.
              And what do you think we get from all this?
A new add campaign. " Drive one." Yeah drive one into a hole in the ground. Or drive one crazy hearing it all the time.

Feb. 12, 08: I guess it's safe to say that Chrysler designed my trucks heater core to make it to 185,000 miles. Good thing I live on the california coast, because just one look at trying to get to it - convinced me to disconnect it at the firewall. For now on, I'll just ware a jacket if I get cold.
                By the way, the air conditioning was gone at  60,000 miles.

Feb. 11 '07: This week my truck totally lost its brain. It doesn't have a tachometer, odometer, or speedometer anymore. And I have to operate my pre-heaters manually. No biggy, I knew the day would come, the less Chrysler running my truck, the better I like it.

I do have the important:
oil, water and voltage gauges.

August 16, 07:  I parked next to   curb that was low because of the crown in the road. My truck was leaning and it resulted in my door closing quite solidly. Well - BANG- glass went flying from one side of the cab to the other. I don't understand why it should have done such a thing, but I think it hit the motorbox. (At the time I thought: At least that is one less thing to go wrong with it who needs a window in California anyway.) However, I was sure to pry the inner door panel inward before I installed another one. Gee, what a piece of junk. I wonder how many folks have that happen every day?

I figured out that the door lock motor mechanism's was only good for about 180,000 miles. Oh well, I still have the passenger side 

On the lemon law
The truth be told, they can sell you a lemon and treat it as if they leased it to you for $.25 per mile and they will usually drag the whole process out until the last few days before it goes to a hearing in court, (at which they would have to label it as a lemon unless they take it to a state where there is no lemon law.)

And when they finally buy it back (before the court hearing,) they won't even have to label it as a lemon when they put it back on the same car lot you bought it from.

I guess I should post another segment from my book about how that game plays out.

It's as if the auto makers had their hands in on the legislation written into the lemon laws.

Still, the $15.00 it cost to register the van for the lemon law was the best $15.00 I ever spent.

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